Almost every race you take part in during the Shift career will have set challenges per match, such as earning a certain number of driver points, mastering every corner by hitting the driving line exactly, or hitting a specified speed. You get the usual race event, as well as time trials, drift events, car battles and manufacturer events.Įvery time you finish a race you’ll receive a star rating depending on your performance and whether you've met certain criteria and progressing you through your career. The only real similarity between Shift and past Need for Speed titles is the events to take part in. The majority of the game's action takes place in its single player experience, the aim being to win the Need for Speed: Shift Live World Tour which involves you working your way up through five tiers, the fifth and final tier being the championship events.
Everything becomes a blur, and you've been right in the driving seat the whole time.
You slam the brakes, and they screech as you slam into the wall. You then realise that in the process, you’re hurtling towards a tyre wall. Imagine this: speeding past opponents at 180mph and them then becoming a blur in your rear view mirror, all this is happening while you are hearing the thunderous roar of both your engine and the person you just sped past. This is possibly the first time the cockpit view is more-entertaining than the overhead view.īest PS5 games 2021: Amazing PlayStation 5 titles to pick up You can change the paint and the general visuals of a car as well as the internals, like the engine and brakes, as well as giving your car NOS and completely changing the cockpit view. Shift is not just the best looking racing game EA has put out, it’s one of the best looking games they’ve published in general – the amount of detail around scenery and car models, including cars like the legendary Bugatti Veyron 16.4, is astonishing – all of which can be damaged.Įach one of the 70+ cars are fully customisable with the money earned during the career mode. The courses are realistic and the scenery gives you some serious eye-candy to stare at during those long and tedious races. Shift can’t decide whether it wants to be an arcade racer or a racing simulation, as the cars turn as if you are playing an old rally game, pivoting on a centre point and sliding round corners similar to Ridge Racer.Įven though the handling isn’t on par with previous racing simulation games, other important factors are spot on, such as the car models and the tracks you race on. Imagine a handicapped horse which gets stuck half way over the hurdle – this is the feeling you get with the controls. Unfortunately, that is something which Shift fails with at the very first hurdle. However, Need for Speed: Shift takes a complete U-turn as it aims for the more serious simulation-based racing fans.Īs Need for Speed has taken a more simulation-based approach to racing with Shift, its most important feature is how the cars control: they’re meant to control like the real cars should.
Traditionally, the series has always been fairly arcade-y in the way the cars control and the missions you were tasked with. Since the days of Underground on the PlayStation 2, people have claimed that the franchise has slowly been going downhill with each title that has come out under the Need for Speed brand. (Pocket-lint) - Need for Speed: Shift is the latest re-boot to the Need for Speed franchise.